


We'll Have to Muddle Through Somehow

by ladivvinatravestia



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Background Relationships, Christmas Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Implied Sexual Content, Kid Fic, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Steve and Nat are bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-25 21:17:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17128901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladivvinatravestia/pseuds/ladivvinatravestia
Summary: Bucky always gives Steve socks for Christmas.  Steve always gives Bucky a book.  It's tradition.  But maybe this year they can start a new tradition, too.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tigrislilium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigrislilium/gifts).



> Many thanks to [babydollbucky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/babydollbucky/profile) for the beta!
> 
> HYBB Secret Santa exchange gift for tigrislilium

Bucky finds himself going Christmas shopping with Clint.Ominously, it’s the same day that Steve and Natasha take a trip down to D.C. for purposes they won’t divulge.Clint has some kind of elaborate shopping plan that drags them all over Bed-Stuy, and he keeps consulting with Laura by text message.

“No,” says Clint after a flurry of text messages, putting some kind of action figure back on the shelf.“Apparently that’s what this guy wears in the second movie, and we need the figure from the third movie.”

They’re in some kind of novelty store, and Bucky doesn’t find any more action figures, but he does find boxer briefs with a bald eagle face on the front.

“Hey, think I should get these for Steve?” he asks Clint, holding them up.

Clint snickers, but says, “If you want to give them to him in the privacy of your own bedroom, go ahead, but you might want to get him something that’s safe to open in front of the kids.”

Bucky hadn’t been thinking about it that way, and hastily puts the briefs back on the shelf.He can’t decide if it’s reassuring or merely supremely unhelpful that all of their friends assume he and Steve are romantically involved.Steve never says anything, either, when the assumption is mentioned, which he supposes is a sign that Steve is, at the least, not entirely put off by the idea, but he can’t help but think that giving Steve novelty underwear is not the best way to signal to his best friend that he has more than strictly platonic feelings for him.

Anyway, he always gives Steve socks for Christmas, and just because it was a tradition born of necessity in the 30s doesn’t mean he shouldn’t continue it now.He picks out a 12-pack of the gaudiest Avengers-branded merchandise socks he can find, and then calls his Christmas shopping done.At least, until they wind up in an art supply store because Clint has to buy Lila a book on how to draw anime characters, and Bucky finds the 24-pack of Copic markers he knows Steve will _never_ shell out for, even though money is no longer an object for either of them.He picks them out, along with a nice new sketch book, and reassures himself that Steve never needs to see the receipt or his credit card bill.

He would like to give Steve a kiss for Christmas too, just like he has wanted to since at least 1936.There’s no war looming, and he has all of his memories back and he’s finally comfortable in his own skin again and nobody on the Avengers team is fighting with anybody else, so maybe this year can finally be the year.There’s nothing stopping him now except his own awkwardness.Hadn’t he been smooth and charming once upon a time?

When the group of them gets together with Sam later in the day for take-away Thai, Steve and Natasha are wearing secretive, satisfied smiles, but Clint shakes his head at Bucky.

“There’s no way we’ll get any intel out of them,” he says.

Bucky figures that’s only half-true- Steve is terrible at lying and terrible at keeping secrets - but on the other hand, if it’s Christmas-related, he’ll find out soon enough.

 

Sam is spending Christmas with the rest of the Wilson clan, but Clint and Laura invite Steve, Bucky, and Natasha to stay with them at the farm.Bucky’s never been to Clint and Laura’s farm house before - he was still trying to Find Himself in Bucharest the last time the team was here.Apparently there are multiple guest bedrooms, but after giving each of them a warm, welcoming hug, Laura puts Bucky and Steve together in the one with the ensuite, at the back of the house, without any fuss or fanfare whatsoever.Steve doesn’t comment on it, so Bucky doesn’t either, but Natasha gives Bucky a Significant Look that tells him she’s figured out all of his secrets and expects him to do something about them.

“Last time we did this was 1944,” comments Bucky, as he and Steve are settling into the bed for the night.It’s the biggest bed they’ve ever shared, but since they’re both bigger than they used to be, Bucky still has to arrange himself carefully so they’re not touching.Especially since Steve doesn’t seem to be making any effort to stay out of Bucky’s space.Well.Maybe if he can figure out how to confess his feelings that won’t be a problem any more.

“Yeah, after you and the rest of the Howlies spent the whole evening trying to get me to kiss Peggy,” Steve agrees.

Bucky recalls - Steve had gone all pink and awkward and Peggy had given Bucky an irritated sort of look and then Steve and Peggy had made transparent and conflicting excuses and ducked away from the mistletoe in opposite directions.One part of Bucky had been happy for Steve, and a little disappointed he hadn’t taken the chance presented to him - after all, here was a woman, finally, who appreciated Steve for who he really was and not just what he looked like.The other part, of course, was the part who’d been in love with Steve for the last several years and never managed to work up the nerve to say anything, for fear of losing the friendship.

“She was a hell of a dame,” says Bucky, wondering how he is supposed to turn this conversation around to a confession of his own feelings.

“She was,” agrees Steve.“But maybe she wasn’t who I wanted to kiss under the mistletoe.”

That stops Bucky short.“She - wasn’t?” he asks.Was there someone else Steve had had his eye on, and Bucky was just so distracted by his own feelings that he hadn’t noticed?

Steve rolls his eyes.“For an experienced sniper, you sure are blind sometimes,” he says.“Come here.”

And then Steve is drawing Bucky towards him, leaning right over into his space, and brushing his hand along Bucky’s jaw.Bucky closes his eyes and leans up into the kiss, snaking an arm around Steve’s waist underneath the covers and breathing in Steve’s scent.It’s even better than he’d always imagined it would be, but -

“Dammit, Rogers!” he exclaims, breaking reluctantly from Steve’s embrace.

Steve scrambles away from Bucky on the bed, looking horrified.

“Sorry, sorry!” he stutters.“I thought - I hoped we were on the same page, but I guess -”

Oops, no, Bucky didn’t mean to give that impression.He reaches for Steve’s hands.

“I was supposed to be the one to give _you_ a kiss for Christmas, you dumb punk,” he says, sitting up so he can scoot awkwardly towards Steve on the bed.

The bed creaks ominously, but Bucky forgets all about that when he sees the smile spreading across Steve’s face.Steve smiles a lot - fake, pasted-on Captain America smiles for the media, more restrained affairs as leader of the Avengers and meant to reassure or praise the team - but Bucky thinks he is the only one who ever gets to see the real thing, a bright, sunny expression that lights up Steve’s whole face and makes his eyes shine even in the dark of the farmhouse.

“Okay, then,” Steve says, “I’m ready for my Christmas present.”The bed creaks again, but Bucky has other things to occupy his attention.

 

Christmas morning brings all three Barton children running up and down the stairs shouting “Santa was here!Santa was here!” at an hour that’s much too early for Bucky, considering how late he and Steve were awake and … _active_ … last night.Bucky groans and burrows down under the covers.Steve’s not there - ugh, did he really get up to go for a run on Christmas morning? - but the sheets are still warm where he was lying next to Bucky, and now there’s no reason at all for Bucky to try to pretend he’s not chasing that warmth.

“Auntie Nat! Uncle Bucky!” shout the children, and then the door to Bucky and Steve’s bedroom is flying open and Cooper and Lila come barrelling towards the bed, Nathaniel toddling afterwards and trailing his blanket.Later, Bucky will maybe need to have a quiet word with Clint about telling his children not to ambush retired brainwashed assassins, but for now the children are making enough noise that he doesn’t need to startle and roll into a defensive crouch when they fling themselves onto the bed and start attacking him with pillows.At least, not until Lila starts jumping up and down and the bed gives one last creak before there’s a loud splintering noise and the mattress under Bucky sags suddenly towards the floor.

At that point, instinct and training take over and Bucky has grabbed both children under his arms and rolled out of the bed towards the door, putting his own body as a shield between children and noise, before he even has time to think about what’s going on.

“That was so cool, Uncle Bucky!” exclaims Cooper, “Can we do it again?!”

Nathaniel looks solemnly at Bucky and sticks a corner of his blanket into his mouth.

Bucky shakily lets out a breath.There’s no threat, but maybe he and Steve shouldn’t have been quite so energetic last night.

“Let’s go and see if we can help your parents make breakfast instead,” he says, loosening his hold on the children.

“But I wanted to play soldier stuff!” objects Lila.

Bucky stands up and starts to usher the children towards the door.Hopefully he doesn’t look like too much of a mess to be seen in mixed company - he and Steve had showered last night, but that hadn’t exactly been the end of their activities.

“Tell you what,” Bucky says, “we can have a snowball fight later and practice all the soldier stuff you want.”

At that, Lila takes off down the stairs, shrieking “Snowball fight!Snowball fight!”

Nathaniel trips over his blanket and starts to wail, so Bucky picks him up and settles him on his hip before heading down the stairs himself.

 

After a giant breakfast, with more than enough to feed two super-soldiers, three growing children, and Clint, the children open their presents, a flurry of torn wrapping paper and happy shrieking.When Bucky sinks back against the couch, fingers wrapped around the warmth of his mug of coffee and eggnog, Steve sits next to him and puts an arm around his shoulders, drawing Bucky against his side.Bucky turns to look at him, and Steve gives him a secret little smile.Bucky’s sure their feelings for each other are glaringly obvious to all of the other adults in the room, but now in this future that is nothing at all like the future he ever thought he would get, he can feel sure that his friends are all happy for him and Steve.

The adults had all agreed not to spend too much money on Christmas presents for each other, which of course means that Steve gives Clint and Laura a hand-drawn portrait of their family, and a portrait of Natasha and Liho for Natasha.Everybody else exchanges trinkets, snow globes, and Starbucks gift cards.Finally it’s time for Steve and Bucky to open each other’s presents.

Steve holds the present Bucky wrapped for him next to his ear and shakes it, frowning slightly when it makes a rattling sound.He says, “I bet it’s socks.”

Natasha says, “There’s a chance you might be too predictable, Barnes,” but Bucky shrugs.Tradition is tradition.

When Steve opens the box, the socks come out first.He scowls at the Iron Man socks, carefully arranged so he’ll see them first, then balls them up and throws them at Bucky, who ducks them easily.He sheds the plain socks he’d been wearing before, ostentatiously pulls on the Captain America socks and says,

“Thanks, Buck, they’re the best!”

He then gives every indication of being done with the box, even though the socks took up only the top portion of it, so Bucky jabs him in the ribs and says, “Are you sure that’s everything?”

Steve looks down into the box again and carefully pulls out the sketch book, then the box of markers.

“No,” he says, looking a little stunned.“This is too much - you shouldn’t have - “

“Sshhh,” says Bucky, elbowing him again.“Only the best for my best guy.”It’s a corny line, but he can’t help the smile that spreads over his face as he - finally - gets to say it.

Steve puts the markers back in the box and reaches over to give Bucky a lingering kiss.Bucky is just getting into it when he’s hit squarely in the back of the head with a balled-up pair of Iron Man socks.He and Steve both turn to glare at Clint, who shrugs and makes a bad show of acting innocent.

Steve looks like he’s itching to pull the Copics out and start making art with them immediately, but Natasha reaches out to prod him in the calf with her toe and hands him the last present from under the tree.It’s the right shape and size to be a book, which is what Steve has traditionally always given Bucky for Christmas, but there’s still the excitement of finding out which book it will be.Steve takes the present and hands it very carefully to Bucky.Hmm, maybe something fragile in a book-shaped box?

Bucky accepts the present just as carefully and turns it over to start unwrapping.It’s still his instinct, as it is Steve’s, to peel the ribbon and tape back carefully so the wrapping paper can be reused.

“Just rip it, Uncle Bucky!” shouts Cooper.

As if in demonstration, Nathaniel picks up a torn piece of wrapping paper and starts tearing it into smaller shreds.

“Maybe - don’t,” says Steve cautiously, as Natasha says,

“No!”

So definitely something fragile, then.Bucky slows down his already-deliberate pace and ever-so-slowly peels back the wrapping paper to reveal a worn, hard-cover book with a grey-green cover featuring a hand-drawn mountain range at the top and a dragon at the bottom.

“Is this -?” he begins.Steve grins at him.

“A book!” shouts Lila, sounding just as disappointed as she had about Steve’s socks.

“ - A first-edition copy of The Hobbit?” Bucky continues, turning the book over in his hands.No wonder Steve and Natasha were being so careful with it.

“Not just any first-edition copy,” Steve corrects, leaning into Bucky’s space so he can carefully open the front cover of the book.Bucky can’t tell if he’s more breathless because of Steve’s nearness, or because of the inscription, in Steve’s hand, on the inside front cover.It’s _his_ first-edition copy of The Hobbit, that Steve had given him for Christmas in 1937.

“Stevie, I - “ begins Bucky, coming dangerously close to feeling An Emotion.His gift of high-quality art supplies seems simultaneously needlessly extravagant and yet not meaningful enough.Then he comes to a realization.“You and Nat had to go to D.C. so you could liberate this from the Smithsonian!” he accuses, waving the book in Steve’s face.

Steve and Natasha exchange glances, then shrug at Bucky, utterly failing to look repentant.

“What’s so special about a smelly old book?” Lila interrupts, and Cooper says,

“The Hobbit?You mean they made a book of the movie?!”

Bucky opens his mouth to try and explain, but realizes it’s probably a lost cause.Instead he stands up and says, “Why don’t we help your parents clean up, and then we can go outside and have that snowball fight we talked about?”

“Snowball fight!Snowball fight!” cheer Cooper and Lila.Nathaniel throws a handful of shredded paper in the air in support of the idea.

“And then,” says Clint, “if you kids can beat me and Uncle Bucky, we’ll watch the Hobbit movies,” - more cheering from the children - “but if you lose, then Uncle Bucky will read his new book to you instead.”

The children make disappointed noises, but Clint looks to Bucky for confirmation and he nods.

“That’s not fair!” says Cooper, and Lila says,

“We want Auntie Nat on our team!”

Natasha starts to herd the children towards their snowsuits as Clint and Laura begin picking up the shredded wrapping paper and tidying the living room.Steve draws Bucky aside, towards the stairs, and puts his arms around him.

“You really shouldn’t have,” he says.“I’m nowhere near a good enough artist to use those -”

“You’re the one who stole a book from a museum for me!” Bucky interrupts, jabbing Steve in the shoulder with one finger but resolutely not pulling away.

Steve looks down and away, turning pink around the ears.“I just wanted to give you something nice,” he objects.

“Mmmm, you did,” says Bucky, “last night.”Impossibly, considering how enthusiastic and skilful he’d been the previous night, Steve turns even pinker, so Bucky decides to press his advantage.“And I assume,” he says, right into Steve’s ear, “it’s a gift that you’ll keep on giving.”

“You’re a jerk,” Steve splutters, but he pushes his nose into Bucky’s hair.“I can’t believe we both waited this long to say anything to each other.”

“Good luck getting rid of me now,” Bucky agrees.

Steve tightens his arms around Bucky and Bucky leans against him, wondering if he should try to come up with something emotionally meaningful to say, or whether they can continue just trading barbs and insults like they always have, when his subconscious screams _Incoming!_ at him.He stops himself from flinching, but just barely.

“What - ?” begins Steve.

Bucky looks up, to where he’d seen the missile’s trajectory, and sees that it’s a sprig of fake mistletoe attached to a dart, now embedded in the ceiling beam above their heads.

“Barton, you asshole,” he complains.

Over by the sink, Clint shrugs unrepentantly.“You know what to do,” he says, making a gesture that stops just short of lewd.

“Pardon me,” says Steve, “but I need to kiss my best guy now.”And then he does.It’s the best Christmas Bucky has ever had.

 

 

 


	2. Post-Credits Scene

After the snowball fight is declared a draw, everyone traipses back inside for hot chocolate with marshmallows and yet more Christmas cookies. Then Lila is queueing up the first Hobbit movie on the TV, and Bucky feels too relaxed to try to object. Hell, why not watch the movie? It’s still on his and Steve’s lists of things to catch up on in the 21st century.

The first movie is fine, but by halfway through the second Bucky is starting to worry that there is still something wrong with his memory.

“This isn’t what I remember happening?” He comments tentatively. “There was no romance with an elf lady?”

“No, they added that in for the movie,” says Laura. “And they changed lots of other things, too.”

“Oh,” says Bucky, relieved about his memory but kind of disappointed about the movies.

“Why? What happens in the book?!” interrupts Lila. Huh. Bucky’d thought she was asleep.

“Why don’t we find out together?” asks Bucky, reaching for his new/old book.

“Yeah!” chorus Lila and Cooper, abandoning their posts in front of the TV to clamber onto the couch with Bucky.

Bucky looks up to trade glances with Laura, who is giving him a subtle thumbs-up, before opening the book to the first page. He clears his throat, then begins:

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”

**Author's Note:**

> visit me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ladivvinatravestia)


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